Evan Jenkins was born in Santa Monica, CA and spent his youth in the coastal town of Ventura, CA. In 2006 he relocated to Chicago (IL), where he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received his BFA in 2010. He continues to live in Chicago working as a freelance photographer and spends his free time and resources pursuing personal projects. He attempts to answer a new set of questions with each project, though his primary interests are in the narrative qualities of photography and its ability to blur the line between truth and fiction.
About ‘Sunflower Sutra’:
Sunflower Sutra collects images created across multiple trips to Southern California, between 2012 and 2018. The project borrows its title from Allen Ginsberg’s poem, in which the narrator is struck by the beauty of a solitary sunflower in the midst of a modernized, desolate landscape. This analogy summarizes both the dream and desperation that California and its mythology traditionally represent.
Jenkins grew up in the coastal town of Ventura (CA) and lived there until he moved to Chicago in 2006. Over the past twelve years, his perception of his home state has shifted to include a much broader understanding of its contentious status as a symbolic place of hope and reinvention. By interweaving staged and “found” imagery, he aims to avoid the traditional documentary mode and instead present an examination of the place as both real and imagined.
